


i'm mad at you (for being so cute and changing my mood)

by joekavaliers



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dating Agency: Cyrano, Alternate Universe - Matchmakers, F/M, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-01-05 05:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12183975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joekavaliers/pseuds/joekavaliers
Summary: “Are you really qualified to give romantic advice? You're not exactly the king of mature relationships."“I think my ‘employee of the month’ plaque from March begs to differ.”“You beat me by one case in March, Peralta. One single case.”“I still beat you.”-or, the au that is loosely based off of "dating agency: cyrano", in which jake and amy are matchmakers who struggle to realize that their perfect matches are each other.





	1. nobody asked you to get me attached to you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ hello!! so this was a completely unplanned thing!! the idea has been in my head for a while, but today i just sat down and wrote it and i didn't want it to go to waste, so i guess this is a story, now? it's based off of a cute lil kdrama called "dating agency: cyrano". i actually never finished the kdrama (or any kdrama in general but shh), but i thought the concept was really cute and i couldn't stop imagining jake and amy in it, so here it is!! this is going to be a short lil fic, capped out at around 3-5 chapters, and i'll try to get them out as fast as i can if you guys read and respond and enjoy it!! 
> 
> \+ the title for the fic and the title for this chapter are both lyrics from the song "i'm yours" by alessia cara!!

**_PRAISE FOR THE CYRANO DATING AGENCY—_ **

_“If you’re tired of dating websites, Cyrano is for you! I had zero luck with Tinder and OkCupid, but a friend recommended me to Cyrano, and they helped me find the love of my life! Now I’m married to a wonderful man, and we have two children together!” — Adam from Manhattan, NY (client)_

_“I had been in love with this girl for my entire life, but I’d been too afraid to do anything about it. The people at Cyrano helped orchestrate the perfection situation (like a meet-cute, except we’d already met before) for her to see me as a romantic option and for me to confess my feelings. Thank you Cyrano for letting this poor little lesbian get the girl.” — Allison from Brooklyn, NY (client)_

_“What Cyrano strives for, (and what makes them moral) is to nudge two people together by creating awareness for each other, not force them together and manufacture love. Each case is about revealing to one party (or two) the existence of the other person (or each other) as a romantic partner and setting up circumstances for them to interact. Whether or not they choose to stay together or not is a matter of what fate throws at them.” — Janet from Queens, NY (feature in New York Magazine)_

* * *

 

Amy Santiago is holding her photos and stationery and cute little office plant in a cardboard box and is moving away from her desk.

No, it is not her desk anymore. The desk that sits in the perfect middle position between the office break room and bathroom is no longer her desk. It is Gina’s desk, and Amy can't help but resent that Gina has stolen her perfect desk.

The only person that Amy Santiago resents more in that moment is Jake Peralta. Jake Peralta is infuriating, messy, cocky, and annoying. He is the reason that Amy is making the walk of shame, moving all the way from her perfect desk to a comparatively imperfect desk that sits right across from him.

Sure, this is objectively much better than having to make the “I just got fired” walk of shame, but subjectively, Jake Peralta is the embodiment of the few flaws Amy can find in her job at the Cyrano Dating Agency turned up to one hundred, and Amy hates him for it.

Since she had begun working at the Cyrano Dating Agency, Amy hadn't needed to move her desk once, even with promotions and the yearly office reorganization project orchestrated by her boss and founder of Cyrano, Terry Jeffords. She had stayed perfectly happy at her perfect desk for years, until Jake Peralta came along.

As a matchmakers, Amy Santiago's job had been simple. She were to review profiles sent in by unlucky singles and use her romantic intuition to find a match for them among the rest of Cyrano’s pool of unlucky singles. Amy excelled at that job. Despite the lack of success in her own romantic life, Amy had an almost algorithmic knack for finding the two people who were perfect for one another. She usually helped plan first dates and meetings to ensure maximum romantic potential.

Jake Peralta got hired two years after Amy had begun working at Cyrano, for a new division that public relations manager Gina Linetti had coined as the “meet-cute division”. Jake and the other Cyrano employees in the division were matchmakers along with general event orchestrators. Whenever an unlucky soul had fallen for someone and needed to find a way to get noticed, they came to Jake Peralta’s division.

Instead of simply matching two people up and planning a date, Jake Peralta would orchestrate “coincidences” where a certain individual would look heroic or brave or strong, something to attract their unrequited lover’s attention.

Amy Santiago had no problem with Jake’s work itself, but rather the lack of seriousness with which he took it. Every so often, Jake would walk by her desk wearing some ridiculous costume, feigning a terrible accent, and telling her that his name is something incredibly stupid like “Rex Buckingham”. He had a tendency of inserting someone that was not himself into his work, often pretending to be his client’s wingman, or maybe an asshole for his client to punch and look heroic, or just some sad sack with an even sadder backstory for his client to look attractive against.

Amy found Jake’s actions slightly manipulative, and his personality off putting. But it didn't bother her much until the prior week, when her came to her for advice on orchestrating a romantic moment, one that later went extremely well for his client. Terry saw that they worked well together, and he decided that Amy’s planning skills would be better off working with Jake Peralta in his division.

So now, her comfortable, perfect desk has been replaced by a one across from Jake Peralta’s garbage dump of a workspace.

As she sits down at her new desk, Jake offers her an annoyingly bright smile and says, “If we’re going to be working together, we need to establish some rules.”

“Since when were you a stickler for rules?”

“Since I became your boss.”

“You’re not my boss. We have the exact same job title, and I got Terry to confirm to me that we're getting paid the exact same amount.”

“Well, despite the lack of gender pay gap, it’s still my job to teach you how to do this job, so until you learn how to do this on your own, I'm your boss.”

“Fine,” Amy groans. “You’re right. So, what are the rules?”

“There are two, but the first one is the most important.”

“And the first rule is…?”

“Amy Santiago, you're not allowed to fall in love with me.”

Amy reaches into her cardboard box, takes out her rubber band ball, and throws it at her new partner.

* * *

 

The next day, Amy arrives at work to find Jake Peralta standing next to her desk, holding a red, heart-shaped box of chocolates.

A part of her wonders if those chocolates are for her, but considering that Jake Peralta’s first rule was that Amy Santiago was not to fall in love with him, it was doubtful.

“What are those?” Amy asks as she sits down. Jake scooches his body closer to the edge of her desk, lessening the distance between them.

“Thank you gift from a client I helped last week. He’s a _chocolatier_.” Jake opens the box and shoves the chocolate towards Amy.

“How am I supposed to be sure these aren’t poisoned?” Amy asks jokingly.

“Well, I’m eating them.” Jake says as he pops a chocolate into his mouth. Amy rolls her eyes at Jake, but she takes a piece of chocolate anyway. For the next few minutes, she can’t speak because her mouth is filled with the sweetest caramel known to man, mixed with the darkest dark chocolate she’s ever had, and she forgets that she’s in a workplace when she lets out a slightly sensual-sounding moan.

“Damn, Santiago. Keep those noises in the bedroom.” Jake laughs.

“That was not a sex moan!” Amy argues.

“Hey! Title of your sex tape!” Jake shouts. In a regular workplace with regular people, it’s a shout that would lead to lots to weird looks and rolled eyes. But Jake has been making that lame joke practically since he’d been hired, and now Amy is the only one who rolls her eyes.

“So what did you do to deserve these chocolates, anyways?” Amy asks, changing the subject away from her sex life. “I mean, other than dress up in a lame costume and walk around telling people that you’re a drug dealer with dreams of becoming a dancer.”

“That was one time, and getting into that role really helped me get to know the dance teacher my client was in love with! If I didn’t find out what I did, I couldn’t have helped them get together!”

“ _Sure._ ”

“You know I actually take my job seriously, right, Amy?” Jake asks. For the first time since she’s known him, Jake’s voice is sincere, like he actually doubts that she respects him.

“Of course,” Amy says. It comes out automatically. It’s not something Amy has ever thought of before, but the moment it leaves her mouth, she realizes that it’s the truth.

She does respect Jake. She doesn’t like his personality, and she doesn’t like his practices, but she has some respect him. After all, he wouldn’t have been working for Cyrano so long if he wasn’t good at his job, and Terry wouldn’t have paired her with him if they weren’t at least marginally intellectual matches for each other.

“...so tell me, why is the chocolatier so grateful to you?” Amy asks again, breaking the uncomfortably sympathetic moment she and Jake are in. Jake launches into an exciting story full of hand gestures and wild gesticulations. At one point, he uses the two of the toy figurines he keeps adorned on his desk to model his client.

Apparently, Jake’s chocolatier client was in love with the florist next door, but was too afraid to talk to her. For two weeks, Jake pretended to be chocolatier’s personal assistant, coming into the flower shop and telling the florist that the chocolatier kept making excess chocolate, and that Jake was sent to bring the florist the chocolates. He had talked to the florist and talked up the chocolatier, so much that at the end of the two weeks, the florist left her flower shop, walked to the chocolate store next door, and asked to meet the man behind the chocolate.

Two years later, they are engaged, and Jake and Amy are sharing a box of thank you chocolates. Amy isn’t one hundred percent sure how much of Jake’s story is true (he has a tendency to make things up, such as the time he told her he’d gone out with a bikini model, when really she was a foot model), but she definitely sees a new side of Jake because of it. He’d never told her one of his work stories before. She had never cared to ask.

But now that she has asked, Amy understands the care that Jake puts into his work, how much of a romantic he truly is.

* * *

 

Their first client as partnered colleagues arrives the next day in the form of a short man named Charles Boyle. Jake had met Boyle while he was working with Boyle’s friend, the chocolatier, and he and Boyle had been friends ever since. However, it was only recently that Boyle found himself ready to enlist Jake’s (and by extension, Amy’s) services.

“...so this is the Amy you’re always talking about,” Boyle says to Jake after Amy introduces herself.

“You talk about me?” Amy asks.

“Don’t be flattered. I only tell him the bad stuff, like your weird elbows but and how yesterday, you threw away my slice of pie.” Jake says.

“That slice had been sitting on your desk for two days, and there were ants crawling all over it,” Amy says, trying to ignore the sting of her “weird elbows”.

“Those ants were my friends!” Jake exclaims.

“I’m your friend,” Charles says. “And I’m also paying you to help me get Vivian to fall in love with me.”

“Why don’t you sit down and tell us all about Vivian.” Amy says. She pulls up a chair for Charles to sit by Jake’s desk. She and Jake sit down and listen intently to Charles as he talks about the woman he met at a work party who loves food just as much as him, and how he’s already asked her on a date, but he’s afraid of going “Full Boyle” and scaring her off.

“Why don’t you set up a double date, so I can sit in and hopefully help you not go all Full Boyle?” Jake suggests.

“But then who’s going to be your date?” Charles asks.

“Amy,” Jake answers. “She still needs to learn how to go undercover.”

“Wait, won’t Vivian be mad that we lied to her if she and Charles end up together and she learns that her first date was a lie?”

“She’s not going to be mad, she’ll be in love! That cancels out all the anger, because she’ll be so happy and in love.” Jake says. Amy reluctantly agrees with him.

And that is how she finds herself wearing a body-hugging green dress and sitting across from Jake in a fancy restaurant. Except he’s not the Jake she knows, nor is he Rex Buckingham. He’s a strange version of himself, one that is charming and romantic, one that she has to pretend to be in love with.

It’s not as hard as she had built it up to be in her head. Throughout the dinner, she and Jake expertly steer Charles away from making a fool of himself. The dinner almost goes off without a hitch, until Charles says that he’s already bought tickets for him and Vivian to go to Rome together, and Jake has to make up an excuse for him to take Charles home and regroup. Amy and Vivian both leave the restaurant and go their separate ways soon after, not seeing a reason to continue their double dates. During Amy’s cab ride home, she gets a text from Jake.

 

 

> **_JAKE:_ ** _hey you were really good today. A+ undercover work._
> 
> **_AMY:_ ** _It was nothing._
> 
> **_JAKE:_ ** _no really, i did not expect you to go so into it. You had a whole story made up about how we fell in love when vivian asked. How?? Why??_
> 
> **_AMY:_ ** _I made notecards before the date just in case, and I reviewed them in the bathroom._
> 
> **_JAKE:_ ** _You are so organized._
> 
> **_AMY:_ ** _How’s Charles doing?_
> 
> **_JAKE:_ ** _good, except for the fact that were at his house and he just bought an engagement ring off of amazon thats supposed to arrive tomorrow morning._
> 
> **_AMY:_ ** _Yikes._
> 
> **_JAKE:_ ** _btw is it ok if we do his case pro-bono now? he’s my friend and i kinda feel bad for getting $$$ from him_
> 
> **_AMY:_ ** _You do realize that pro-bono is usually meant to lawyers, and not matchmakers, right?_
> 
> **_JAKE:_ ** _So is that a yes?_
> 
> **_AMY:_ ** _Yes, but you owe me._
> 
> **_JAKE:_ ** _thanks ames UR THE BEST_

Amy smiles at her phone.

* * *

 

The next day, Jake comes into work after Amy, holding Charles’s phone his hand and a look of determination on his face.

“I think we’ve been going about this all wrong,” Jake says. “We don’t need to stop him from going Full Boyle, we need him to go even Fuller Boyle.” Amy raises an eyebrow, but the confusion on her face quickly disappears when Jake plays her the sappy voicemails that Vivian has left on Charles’s phone.

“That’s so sweet,” Amy says as Jake finishes playing her the last voicemail. “It’s super gross, but it’s also really sweet.”

“I know, right? We need to get these lovebirds together, STAT.”

Jake and Amy spend the rest of the morning making up a plan and then decorating an empty room in their office space with roses and flowers. They invite Charles and Vivian over to their office.

By the end of the day, Charles and Vivian are engaged, and the janitors have sworn vengeance against Jake and Amy’s work.

* * *

 

In the coming months, Amy grows into her own into her new job. She starts taking on her own clients and cases, ones where she doesn’t have Jake watching over her and telling her what to do. She doesn’t put on as many costumes nor fake as many accents as he does, but she still enjoys her successes.

She and Jake grow closer too. Against all belief, they actually become something akin to friends. They confide in each other about their respective failed relationships. They no longer formally share clients, but they help each other when they can. They compete, too.

“Are you really qualified to give romantic advice?” Amy asks one day as Jake brags about his most recent successes. “You're not exactly the king of mature relationships."

“I think my ‘employee of the month’ plaque from March begs to differ.”

“You beat me by one case in March, Peralta. One single case.”

“I still beat you.”

“You’re such a child, Peralta.”

* * *

 

Charles and Vivian’s engagement falls apart not too long after. Vivian moves to Canada, and Jake is out of the office more and more, trying to console his friend. Amy can’t help but miss Jake when he’s away.

 

 

> **_AMY:_ ** _How is Charles doing?_
> 
> **_JAKE:_ ** _i got him to eat smth today!!_
> 
> **_AMY:_ ** _I’m proud of the both of you._
> 
> **_JAKE:_ ** _thanks ames. i just wish i could help him more._
> 
> **_AMY:_ ** _I think I might know how to._
> 
> **_JAKE:_ ** _????_
> 
> **_AMY:_ ** _There’s a woman, Genevieve, I couldn’t find a match for back when I worked in matchmaking. She’s an artist, she loves dogs, and she’s just as weird about dogs as Charles is. I think they might be perfect together._
> 
> **_JAKE:_ ** _the best way to get over someone is to get under someone new!!_
> 
> **_AMY:_ ** _So I’m guessing that’s a yes?_
> 
> **_JAKE:_ ** _totally_
> 
> **_AMY:_ ** _I’m sending you the address to the art gallery. Meet me down there whenever you can get away from Charles. Be prepared to wingman you’ve never before._

That afternoon, Jake meets Amy at an art gallery downtown.

“Jake, this is Genevieve. Genevieve, this is Jake. He’s Charles’s friend, the one I was telling you about.” Amy introduces. Genevieve and Jake shake hands.

“Why isn’t Charles here himself?” Genevieve asks.

“Charles is a detective, and he’s currently working on a serious homicide case,” Jake lies. “He’s a real hero.”

“From what Amy has told me, he seems lovely, and I can’t want to meet him.”

“How about tonight?” Jake asks. “Charles has a night off, and he’d love to take you out to dinner.”

“Does he like Japanese food? I know this place that has the best takoyaki.” Genevieve says.

“Yeah, he loves that taco-yucky stuff.” Jake says. Amy has to stifle a laugh at Jake’s takoyaki pronunciation. “Why don’t you give us the address, and we’ll have Charles meet you there are eight.”

“It’s a date!” Genevieve exclaims. She gives them the information, and Jake and Amy proceed to talk up Charles to Genevieve before Jake’s phone rings and he and Amy remembers that they only have a couple of hours to prepare Charles for what totally could be his first date with the rest of his life.

They say their goodbyes, but before they can leave, Genevieve asks, “Just out of curiousity, how long have you two been together?”

“Oh, we’re not—”

‘I would never—”

“Seriously, there’s nothing going on—”

“We’re co-workers,” Amy finally manages to spit out. “There’s nothing going on here.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. You two just seemed like a couple.”

“Well, we really have to get going now.” Amy says, frantically walking out the door of the gallery and trying not to think about how she and Jake could have possibly looked even remotely into each other.

They don’t speak about Genevieve’s statement, instead steering the conversation towards Charles and Genevieve. They agree to reserve a table by the window for Charles and Genevieve, so they themselves can keep an eye on them without getting too close for comfort and risking making it weird with their couple-ish non-couplishness.

That night, Amy finds herself sitting in the passenger seat of Jake’s car, staring through binoculars at two people that they have just set up together. The night begins with Amy trying to read lips, and Jake laughing at her when she says something totally nonsensical, and her lightly punching him in the arm because _it’s hard to read lips from a distance_.

But the conversation quickly turns away from Charles and Genevieve and towards Jake and Amy themselves. Jake rattles on and on about how _Die Hard_ is the best movie ever, and how that had made him want to be a cop but a chain of events led him to getting recruited by Cyrano, and Amy pretends to listen.

Instead of hearing how William Atherton is the second best _Die Hard_ villain, Amy notices how Jake’s face looks, framed by the yellow lamplight and a white moonlight shining from above.

And then it’s like a light has been turned on, and she’s a simple moth, attracted to the brightness of Jake’s smile.

 _Oh no_ , Amy thinks, _I like Jake_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: the third "review" in the opener from this fic is actually part of a review from the website seoulbeats for the aforementioned drama, but i thought it really fit with what i was going for this fic so i kinda included it!! 
> 
> if you wanna talk to me about this fic or anything b99 in general, feel free to yell at me on my tumblr [jcnesloan](http://jcnesloan.tumblr.com/)


	2. girl, i hope you're sure what you're looking for

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy deals with her feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is a new chapter i guess?? i've been having a lot of writer's block, and i haven't been able to work on this fic because of college stuff. BUT i did NOT want to work on college stuff today, so here this is!! sorry it's so short, but i promise it's worth it!! and i promise that the next chapter is coming out sooner than you think!!
> 
> title is from "perfect" by one direction

The Monday morning after Amy Santiago realizes that she has feelings for Jake Peralta is the first Monday morning where he shows up to work earlier than her.

Amy arrives at twenty minutes earlier than she usually does, but Jake Peralta is already there. His eyebrows are furrowed, and his fingers are moving furiously across his laptop keyboard. He doesn’t notice Amy come in. However, despite him having his headphones in, Amy can hear the soft lilt of an old Taylor Swift song before she can sit down at her desk.

It takes exactly twenty-nine minutes for Jake to notice that Amy is sitting across from him.

(Amy pretends that it doesn’t sting a little.)

“Hey, Santiago. Didn’t see you come in,” Jake finally says, smiling at Amy while pulling his headphones out. “When did you get here?”

“Half an hour ago.”

“Wow, half an hour earlier than when you usually get here, and _I still beat you_.” Jake is beaming way too proudly, and Amy wants to kiss that smile off of his stupid face.

“Getting to work early is not a competition, Peralta.”

“It is if I won!” Jake exclaims.

“Whatever,” Amy says. “What are you doing here so early, anyways?”

“Uh, work?”

“It must be an important client if you’re awake before nine. Can I take a look?”

“No,” Jake says, closing his laptop screen. “It’s super confidential. I signed a confidentiality agreement and everything. I would tell you, but he wants to keep it on the down low.”

“Is it a celebrity or something?”

“Something like that.”

“Why are you being so dodgy today?”

“I’m handling a very important case for a celebrity, Amy! I can’t just talk about it to just anyone!” Jake’s voice raises to a slightly too loud for comfort level, and Amy decides not to press the subject any further.

“Fine. I won’t press it any longer.” Amy opens up her laptop and begins doing her own work.

At 10:15 a.m., she feels a rubber band ball hit her in the shoulder. She looks up and sees Jake’s stupid apologetic face, and she wants to kill him.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Jake says earnestly. “I didn’t want to offend you.”

“It’s okay,” Amy says. Jake takes a deep breath.

“So, have any plans for tonight?” Jake asks, his eyes moving up and down, taking in the pink dress that Amy is wearing.

“Yeah, it’s my friend Kylie’s birthday. I’m going out for drinks with her after work, and she wants to introduce me from one of her friends from work.”

“Okay. Cool cool cool cool cool. Where are you going?”

“Shaw’s, probably.”

“Cool. Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool. Seems fun.“

“I hope it is fun. I haven’t met a good guy in a while.” Amy lies, trying to see how Jake will react to her statement. His expression doesn’t change. He’s still smiling.

“Well, I hope tonight’s the night.”

* * *

 

“Bad news, Luke can’t make it tonight. He has the flu,” Kylie says as she slide onto a barstool next to Amy’s.

“Oh, thank god,” Amy admits.

“Well that’s not a very nice way to greet your friend on her birthday, especially after she’s worked very hard to talk you up to a very good guy,” Kylie replies.

“Sorry,” Amy apologizes. “Happy birthday. Your present is in my car.”

“Thank for that late birthday wish. It means a lot to me,” Kylie says. “Now what’s wrong with you?”

“Work.” Amy offers meekly.

“Is it Jake again?” Kylie asks. “I swear to god, the next time he does some stupid shit I’m going right down to Cyrano and beating him up on your behalf.”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” Amy assures. “Actually, I think I might have feelings for Jake.”

“You do not have feelings for Jake. You _cannot_ have feelings for Jake. I refuse to let you fall in love with him.” Kylie says.

“I never said that I was in love with him,” Amy points out. “I just said that I was into him.”

“I don’t care what you said. You can’t be into him.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m your best friend, and you complain about him almost every time we talk. If anything, you just need to hate-bang him to get this feeling out of your system.”

“Kylie, no.”

“Tell me, what made you fall for him in the first place, huh?”

“We were sitting in a car, making sure his friend was doing good on a date, and we started talking. He’s a lot more sensitive than I thought, and just… the way he looked in the lamplight. I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”

“I can. It wasn’t Jake, it was what you were doing,” Kylie says. “You fell in love with the moment, and you thought you were falling in love with the guy.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?”

“Well, from my experience, the best way to get over someone is to get under someone new.” Kylie says, her eyes drifting to the jukebox in the corner of the bar, where a tall man nursing a drink had been looking in their direction.

“What, him? He’s a total stranger.” Amy argues.

“Exactly, it’s perfect.” Kylie replies.

“I am not doing this.” Amy says.

“Yes you are. It is my one birthday wish.” Kylie says. Cursing Kylie and Jake and everything about her life, Amy grabs her beer and begrudgingly walks over to the man by my jukebox.

“Hey, were you looking at me and my friend earlier?” Amy asks.

“Yeah, but I swear I wasn’t doing it in a creepy way,” the man says.

“I’m Amy.” Amy sticks her hand out for the man to shake. The man shakes her hand.

“I’m Teddy.”

“Nice to meet you, Teddy. So... do you come here often?”

“Nah, this isn’t my usual spot. I heard that this bar has great pilsners, and I wanted to scout a table before I bring my friends here for this bar’s trivia night.”

“You like trivia competitions?” Amy asks excitedly.

“I love them. I used to go to one at a bar a couple of blocks from here, but it closed down.”

“I’m sorry about that, but I assure you, you’ll love the one that have here, and not because my teammates and I are the reigning champions,” Amy brags. “Trivia Newton-John is nationally ranked.”

“Well, wait until you meet my team: John Trivia-olta.”

* * *

 

The next morning, Amy comes into work with a smile on her face.

“Wow. Fun time with Kylie and her work friend?” Jake asks as Amy sits down at her desk.

“Yes, but no. Kylie’s birthday was great, but her friend didn’t show up,” Amy says. “I did meet someone though. His name is Teddy. He’s a cop. He loves trivia competitions.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“He was really sweet. We’re going out for dinner on Wednesday.”

“I hope you two have fun. And remember to use protection.”

“God, can’t you be mature for just one minute?”

“Hey, that was being mature. Protection is what adults do.”

* * *

 

The first date with Teddy practically erases Jake from Amy’s mind. Teddy Wells is perfect. He’s mature, he’s organized, and he goes to the same grocery store that she does, though she has never noticed him. Teddy is the kind of person that Amy can imagine herself starting a future with a long way down the life.

Amy is not afraid of her feelings for Teddy. Instead, she looks to him at trivia nights. He claps for her when Trivia Newton-John gets a question right, even when John Trivia-olta is way, way down. She kisses him when her team wins again, and he tastes like pilsners and mint toothpaste.

It doesn’t take long for their things to begin appearing at each other’s places. Within two months, Amy is wearing Teddy’s shirts to sleep, even when he isn’t sleeping over, and she has a toothbrush at Teddy’s place.

* * *

 

 

> **_TEDDY_ ** _: Hey thanks for all the help with talking to Amy._
> 
> **_JAKE_ ** _: no problem. just doing my job…….. literally. btw ur one payment behind_
> 
> **_TEDDY_ ** _: i’ll get it to u ASAP. but things are going good now so i don’t think i’ll need u much longer_
> 
> **_JAKE_ ** _: okay great cool cool cool cool cool_

Two months, Jake thinks to himself. The longest he’d ever worked with a client to make sure their relationship worked.

Teddy had come by the office one day when Amy was out at lunch, talking about a pretty girl with a perfect shopping list and saying that he’d do anything to be with her. Jake immediately took Teddy on as a client. He stayed on, even when Teddy began telling Jake everything he knew about the girl from the grocery store, even when Jake found out that the girl from the grocery store was Amy Santiago.

Two months of lying to Amy and telling her that he’d been working with a celebrity, when really he’d been coaching Teddy Wells and teaching him how to be interesting.

The hardest two months of Jake Peralta’s life, though he isn’t necessarily sure why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you wanna talk to me about this fic or anything b99 in general, feel free to yell at me on my tumblr: [leotitz](http://leotitz.tumblr.com/)


	3. interlude: he keeps a picture of you in his office downtown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ sooooo i was struggling a lot with writing the next chapter so i decided to write this lil interlude to stall?? this sounds bad but i call it a lil interlude because it's a departure in format from the other chapters, so it's not like, main story, but it's also important and i'm a lil proud of it?? so i hope you like this!!
> 
> \+ title from "you are in love" by taylor swift

There are over six hundred pictures on Jake Peralta’s phone, and exactly fifty-one of them are of Amy Santiago.

It’s not that he’s in love with her, or that he even remotely likes her (no, that definitely no it), it’s that Amy Santiago just happens to make great facial expressions, and Jake Peralta just happens to consider himself an amateur photographer.

Picture one isn’t necessarily his, but it is the one that starts it all.

It’s a screenshot of one of Gina’s snapchats, back from when Amy was still working in general matchmaking and back when Amy hated him.

In the picture, Amy is hunched over her desk, surrounded by at least twelve binders. There is a pencil tucked behind her ear, and her trash can is filled with coffee cups. Her eyes and hair have that same feral quality. 

And yet, Gina still saw it fit to caption it with “get u a girl who can do both”, “both” meaning both effortlessly put together and absolutely dysfunctional at the same time.

Upon receiving the snapchat, Jake immediately screenshots it and looks across the open office space toward Amy’s desk, where she is yelling at a pencil sharpener for not sharpening well enough.

Jake doesn’t know whether he should be worried or turned on at the sight of Amy Santiago’s anger.

(Worried. The right answer is worried.)

Jake leaves his desk, gets in the elevator, and heads downstairs to the coffee shop that sits on the ground floor of the building.

He doesn’t know Amy’s coffee order, so he orders her the most caffeinated thing he can think of: a caffè americano with a double shot of espresso. Within fifteen minutes, Jake is standing in front of Amy’s desk, setting a cup of coffee down on the only non-leaning stack of papers she has.

“Not now, Peralta. I have important work to do,” Amy says, not bothering to look up from her laptop.

“Relax Santiago, I’m not here to bother you,” Jake replies.

“Well whatever you’re doing, get your coffee off of my papers. They’re important.”

“It’s not my coffee.”

“It better not be that stupid blue drink that is absolutely terrible, because I’m pretty sure that would burn a hole through my work if it got spilled.”

“It’s your coffee.”

“What?” Amy looks up from her work and sees the steaming cup of coffee on her desk. “You bought that? For me?”

“You looked like you needed it, and it didn’t seem like you were leaving this desk anytime soon.” Amy grabs the cup with her hands and takes a sip. Her brows furrow at the new taste, but she doesn’t seem to hate it.

“Thank you. That was really nice of you.” Amy smiles, and before she can turn away from Jake and back to her work, Jake pulls out his phone and snaps a picture of Amy’s feral, yet happy, face.

“There it is! Let today, March eleventh, be known as the first day Amy Santiago has ever smiled at Jake Peralta!”

“Just when I think you’re a bearable human being, you have to go and ruin it.” Amy says, rolling her eyes and turning back to her work. Jake takes that as his cue to walk away.

“You still smiled at me, though!” Jake yells. 

The image of her, wild yet smiling with wonder in her eyes, is the second picture of her on his phone, the first that he’d taken himself, and the beginning of a series of semi-artistic, mostly embarrassing shots of Amy Santiago.

* * *

Pictures ten through fifteen are Jake’s favorites.

They, too, are from a time Jake later begins to consider the “before”, before Amy got transferred to his department, before Charles and Genevieve, before Charles and Vivian, before Teddy, before “Amy Santiago, you’re not allowed to fall in love with me”.

That night, practically their entire workplace is at a nightclub to celebrate Gina’s birthday. Amy stands off to the side, leaning against the bar, watching everyone dance and trying as hard as she can  _ not _ to have to see the club-goers grinding against each other.

After dancing with at least four girls and three guys, Jake heads over to the bar and stands next to Amy.

“This is a dance club, Santiago. You should dance,” Jake urges.

“No thanks. This kind of dancing isn’t my style.”

“But it’s Gina’s birthday. You’d be disappointing her if you didn’t dance,” Jake lies. In reality, Gina is in the middle of the dance floor, grinding against her girlfriend Rosa, and too drunk to care about whatever Amy does right now.

“Please,” Amy scoffs. “She’d make fun of me for even trying.”

“She loves making fun of people! That could be your birthday present to her!”

“I already got her a birthday present.”

“Why do you have to be so prepared?”

“What’s wrong with being prepared?”

“ _ Everything _ . Don’t you ever just do something just because you want to at the moment?”

“Yes. Of course. It just happens that I don’t want to dance right now.”

“Well, what do you want to do?” Jake asks.

It’s a challenge, more than anything. As he asks, he leans his face toward Amy, trying to intimidate her, trying to challenge her into doing something crazy. Normally, he wouldn’t do this, but he’s drunk on adrenaline and seven different types of alcohol right now, and the only thought in his mind is that he’s never seen Amy Santiago dance before.

Amy leans closer to him too. There are mere millimeters between their lips. If Jake Peralta were any dumber, braver, or drunker, he’d take this as a cue to messily crash his lips against Amy’s and severely complicate their working relationship.

But Jake Peralta is Jake Peralta, and Amy Santiago is Amy Santiago, and that is not how their relationship works.

Their relationship is challenges. Their relationship is Amy’s fierce expression in the face of Jake’s goofy face, their relationship is her being his equal and opposite reaction, their relationship is her saying “I want you to stop asking me to dance” in a way that sends chills down his spine.

“Well, do you want to get out of here, then?” Jake asks.

“Wait, what?”

“Well, you’re not doing any dancing, and all my dancing is making me pretty hungry. Why don’t you say we get out of here and find something to eat?”

“Yeah, that sounds great… but wouldn’t Gina be mad if she found out?”

“Nah, her tongue is too far down Rosa’s throat to notice.” Amy laughs. Jake grabs Amy’s hand and begins pulling her toward the exit. “Now come on, I know this twenty-four hour diner a few blocks away that has the best milkshakes.” 

To Jake’s surprise, Amy follows him outside the club and walks with him to the diner. More than once, she has made fun of his eating habits and threatened to help Charles hold an intervention for him. Yet, she seems to listen intently as he describes how the milkshakes are not too thick that you can’t suck it up a straw, but not too thin that they’ll melt in two seconds.

Jake and Amy arrive at the diner ten minutes after leaving in the club. Once inside, they on opposite sides of a booth in the corner. Jake orders the same thing for the both of them: a large vanilla milkshake and a cheeseburger.

The food is made quickly, but there is a catch: the dine has run out of straws. Amy groans and begins drinking her milkshake. By the time she sets her cup down, she has a milkshake mustache that reminds Jake of Santa Claus.

He takes six three. The first three are completely normal, but the last three have Amy’s wild eyes and reaching over the table to try and grab Jake’s phone.

“Delete those pictures!” Amy shouts as Jake tucks his phone back into his jeans pocket.

“No, I’ll treasure them forever.”

“You’re the worst.”

“I know.”

* * *

Picture thirty-two is one of Jake’s favorites. It is from their first success together as true co-workers. After decorating an empty room in the office with romantic roses and candles, Jake insisted that he and Amy take a cheesy, hands-around-the-waist, prom picture because  _ there is an arch _ and  _ come on Amy, please, just be cool, for once _ .

In the picture, they are both dressed in their work clothes, Amy is frowning, and Jake looks like he’s just been told that Bruce Willis is downstairs and he is giving away free, autographed DVD copies of the Die-Hard movies.

* * *

Jake also likes picture thirty-five. It is arguably the prettiest picture of Amy on Jake’s phone, according to Jake. However, according to Amy, that isn’t saying much.

“Your dress makes you look like a mermaid,” Jake says as he snaps the picture.

They are in a thrift store, trying on formal clothes for a job, and Amy is frowning.

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” Amy asks, crossing her arms.

“Of course it is! Everyone loves mermaids!” Jake argues. “Ariel from  _ The Little Mermaid _ was one of my first crushes”

“Gross, no one needs to hear about your childhood crushes.”

“Title of your sex tape!”

* * *

Pictures forty-eight through fifty-one aren’t Jake’s, not really. They are screenshots from Amy’s Instagram and Facebook accounts. There is a selfie of Amy with a Ted Talk speaker she’d gushed for hours about, a picture of Amy holding a first-place trophy from a trivia competition, a childhood photo of Amy in a police officer’s costume for Halloween, and a picture of Amy’s reunion with her friends from her high school math club.

Those pictures are strictly for research and instruction. When Teddy came in asking for Jake’s help and Jake realized that Amy was the one that Teddy wanted to impress, Jake knew that he had a lot of work to do.

On one hand, Teddy is perfect for Amy. They like all the same things: math, reading, boring food, lame Oscar-bait films. He is slightly awkward, but he has a nice smile and a sense of boyish charm Jake knew that Amy would like.

On the other hand, Teddy is absolutely boring. He isn’t boring in the way that Amy was boring. Amy is soothing and inoffensive coffee shop music, and Jake was one of those guys who goes to coffee shops to chill and get work done. Teddy was manila folders and clear tape: functional yet completely bland.

But to Jake, two wrongs could make a right, and two borings could make an interesting, right?

So, Jake takes Teddy on as a client. For a week, Jake works with Teddy, using the pictures to introduce the real Amy Santiago to him.

With every teaching session, Jake watches as Teddy Wells falls more and more in love with Amy Santiago. The more Teddy falls, the more Jake feels a tugging on his own heartstrings.

_ I just care about Amy _ , Jake tells himself.  _ This feeling is happiness that I’m making a friend happy _ .  _ God, I’m such a good friend _ .

So, Jake works with Teddy more and more. Even after the meet-cute is done, he hangs on, secretly helping Teddy navigate through conversations. 

Two months go by before Teddy decides that he needs to build something with Amy on his own and leaves the nest.

Jake doesn’t know how to feel. 

He doesn’t feel the heavy tugging anymore.

He feels different now.

A lightness. A painful lightness. A painful, longing lightness. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> talk to me abt b99 or anything else on my tumblr: [leotitz](http://leotitz.tumblr.com/)


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